Residential Robbery
Location: Los Angeles, California Date: February 12th, 1989 Story Around 9pm on the night of February 12th, 1989, in suburb of Los Angeles, California, George and Vera Schelborn were at home watching TV. Vera had their 10-month-old daughter in her lap and their 11-year-old son was asleep. George had the flu and the baby was fussing. They heard a knock at the door. When George went to answer the door three armed robbers barged in holding shotguns to his neck. One went into his room while another asked Vera if anyone else was in the house. "My son, he's in his bedroom," she replied. The robber went to the son's room. He duct taped his arms and legs together and taped his mouth shut. While he was doing that, Vera trying to be quiet and quickly called 911. When the dispatcher answered all that she could say was, "Help! There's a burglary at my house," and their address. The dispatcher continuously told her to stay on the line but she couldn't and hung up. After Vera hung up the phone, she was worried that 911 didn't take her call seriously because of how brief it was and she also didn't think she sounded like herself. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department did take it seriously and deputies arrived on the scene in seconds with guns drawn. They were being very careful by not knocking on the door or barging in, being that there were weapons involved. "It could go one or another way. The suspects could answer the door claiming to be one of the residents and say everything's fine or they could answer the door with guns in hand," said one of the deputies. While the deputies stayed outside, they told dispatch to call the Schelhorns back to try and get a clear understanding of what was going on. When the phone started ringing, one of the robbers went back into the living room where Vera and the baby were. He pointed his gun at Vera threatening to shoot her if she moved or answered the phone. George was concerned that the phone kept ringing and thought that was billing from his work, and if he didn’t answer it they would think something was wrong and there would be problems. The robber let George answer the phone. The dispatcher asked him if there was a problem over there. He wondered to himself who it was, so out of sheer panic all he said was, "Take a load of sand at 7:00 in the morning." The dispatcher was confused at that. He replied, "You talking to me? This is the Sheriff's department." George didn't want the robber to hear that, so trying to keep cool, and end the call he said, “ I don't give a damn, just take a load of sand, okay?" And quickly hung up. The robber holding Vera at gunpoint in the living room was getting very nervous and antsy and told the other robbers in the room with George to hurry up. They were barking at him to open the safe. He trying keep things calm, told them he had keys out in the yard, and follow him outside. But they had their own set of keys. George had been set up. The robbers knew his name, address, and even about the safe in his house and the money he had in it. George owned a trucking company and often kept a lot of cash on hand. On the night of the robbery he just happened to have more then usual because he had a payroll coming up, and a holiday was around the corner as well, so he had more then usual for holiday bonuses. The robbers stole $145,000 from the safe. They went outside only to be greeted by deputies with guns drawn at the house. The third robber headed for the back door. Unaware that the police were outside George reached into his safe and pulled out his gun. "It sacred me even more to go outside with my gun, because if I was going outside with it in my hand, I was ready to shoot someone," he said. The police immediately saw George with his gun in his hand, and they drew on him and ordered him to drop it which he did. The robbers were immediately taken into custody, and the money was recovered. If the police had arrived a few minutes later, the outcome would've been way worse. George was patted down by them, being that they didn't know whether he was the homeowner or one of the robbers. Thankfully, nobody was hurt during the ordeal. One of the robbers was found guilty on charges of weapons violations, and armed residential robbery, and sentenced to four years in prison, the other was awaiting trial, and the one that went out the back was still at large. Category:1989 Category:California Category:Robberies